View full sizeFile | The Saginaw NewsDefendants Christopher DeLeon, left, and William Borrero wait to leave Saginaw County District Court last week following testimony during their preliminary hearing. Borrero and DeLeon face criminal charges in connection with the New Year's Eve slaying of Tyler Strong in Saginaw.

SAGINAW — Despite mostly circumstantial evidence and his girlfriend claiming she doesn’t remember what she told police, William R. Borrero will stand trial in connection with the New Year’s Eve homicide of Tyler Strong.

Saginaw County District Judge Kyle Higgs Tarrant concluded the third part of the preliminary hearing today for Borrero, 18, and Christopher M. Deleon, 17, by concluding that prosecutors showed probable cause to take Borrero to trial in Circuit Court.

Borrero of 2308 N. Oakley in Saginaw is charged with an open count of murder, two counts of assault with intent to murder, possessing with intent to deliver marijuana, interfering with a witness, and eight other firearm felonies in the shooting death of the 23-year-old Strong.

Deleon of 125 N. Bond is charged with being an accessory after the fact and possessing a firearm during the commission of a felony. Tarrant ruled that probable cause existed for a trial on the accessory charge but said she’d wait at least a week to determine whether Deleon also can be charged with the felony firearm offense, which carries a mandatory sentence of two years in prison.

Two of Strong’s friends, both of whom The Saginaw News is not naming at the request of prosecutors and police, testified that they went to Borrero’s house to purchase about an ounce of marijuana. Strong waited in the car as the two men went inside to purchase the marijuana, the witnesses said.

Prosecutors say Borrero became upset when he realized they had paid him with a fake $100 bill and then exited the home and fired at Strong’s car as he drove away. Strong was shot in the head.

Borrero’s girlfriend, 16-year-old Tierra Kutsch, testified last week that she didn’t remember most of what she told investigators, including that Borrero admitted shooting Strong. Kutsch again was called to the stand Friday after conferring with a court-appointed attorney, and testified again that she didn’t remember her statements.

Saginaw County Assistant Prosecutor Paul Fehrman played an audio recording of a call Borrero placed from the jail to Kutsch during the middle of her interview. During their conversation, Borrero tells her, “Don’t talk to nobody, all right? Do not talk to them at all.” Borrero also told her to contact his attorney, Rod O’Farrell.

Saginaw Police Detective Andy Carlson testified that Kutsch “started to change some of the information” she was providing after the phone call.

The phone call was the basis of the witness interference charge that Fehrman added Friday. O’Farrell argued that Borrero was simply telling his girlfriend what her rights were, but Judge Tarrant said she interpreted Borrero’s statement to mean “he was looking out for (himself).”

At Tarrant’s request, Fehrman outlined his office’s argument as to why Deleon should face the accessory charge. Kutsch testified that only she, Borrero, and Deleon were at Borrero’s house at the time of the shooting.

When police arrived on scene and searched the house, only Borrero and Kutsch were there. Police could not find the .40-caliber handgun believed to be used in the shooting.

“Only one person was there who could have taken it,” Fehrman said, referring to Deleon.

Deleon also told Carlson that on the night of the shooting, he was at the Fashion Square Mall from 6 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. The mall closed that day at 6 p.m., Fehrman said, a fact that shows Deleon’s “consciousness of guilt.”

“The circumstantial evidence is compelling,” he said.

Both O’Farrell and Deleon’s attorney, Robert B. Currie, argued that Fehrman’s case relied extensively on circumstantial evidence. The two men with Strong that night did not identify Deleon, Currie argued.

“They can’t prove he was even at that house,” Currie said. “(The police) still don’t know what happened.”

Tarrant said that one of Strong’s friend’s identification of Borrero as the shooter — he testified, “I couldn’t see his face, but it was him” — was “fuzzy” but did identify Borrero as the shooter.

The judge also said she would wait until she rules on whether she’ll bind Deleon’s felony firearm charge over to Circuit Court and until the conclusion of his unrelated felony trial, which began Wednesday, for resisting and obstructing a police officer before she rules on Deleon’s $750,000 bond.